


A Book Of Orchids

by Daphne_Fredriksen



Series: Restoration - Book 2, The London Conference [1]
Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV), Victoria (TV)
Genre: AU, Crossover, F/M, MitHC/Vicbourne, Reincarnation, Time Travel, Vicbourne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daphne_Fredriksen/pseuds/Daphne_Fredriksen
Summary: In this AU/time-travel tale, John Smith goes to London on Reich business -- and discovers a ruined house and a botanical folio that opens up to him who he really is.
Relationships: John Smith (Man in the High Castle)/Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819-1901), John Smith/Vickie Kent, William Lamb 2nd Viscount Melbourne/Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819-1901)
Series: Restoration - Book 2, The London Conference [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882885
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. In Town Early

Reichsmarschall Smith was in London for the Transatlantic Provinces Conference of the Greater Nazi Reich.

The meeting’s purpose was to increase Nazi influence & cooperation amongst the Reich’s Anglo-American territories. The leaders of the American Reich, the North American Provinces (formerly Canada), and Greater Nationalist England were attending. King Edward VIII would preside; the Nazis had given the nod to the English habit of monarchy, and in fact, restored the monarch’s power to pre-Victorian status. The King and Queen Wallis would host a grand state dinner on the final night of the conference. It was all rather a big deal.

Smith wasn’t actually due in England for another week, but on a whim he’d decided to visit early. He had mixed emotions about this journey: relief at getting away from New York; high hopes for further rapport with his fellow leaders; and a bit of nostalgia, having been stationed in Britain during his U.S. Army service. The nostalgia was bittersweet – it bore a touch of guilt for the girl he left behind...

Anyhow, he might as well try to enjoy this trip. No reason not to. He hardly had a family anymore; Helen had left, taking Jennifer and Amy. Metzger and Klemm surreptitiously kept tabs on them in the Neutral Zone, so they were safe, at least.

He was over his jetlag from the day before and took a cursory look at a map of London. Since he’d arrived early, he should take advantage of it and see the countryside. But where? John considered the north of England, remembering his time near Ipswich. But he decided that was too far away. Besides… there was no point in reliving memories.

The concierge arranged a car rental. In an unusual move for the hyper-disciplined Smith, he decided to let whimsy take him, to follow a road just because he liked it. Maybe follow it about 80, 90, 100 km out of town and see where it took him. After all, he was on what the Brits called “holiday.” Other than a daily call to Metzger, he had no one to report or account to but himself…


	2. Stones And Glass Houses

John drove north from the hotel. The sleek glass-and-concrete of the Great Rebuilding dominated the center of the city, interspersed by historical remnants of old London. (John noted the Reich apparently liked Georgian architecture.) But further out, as he headed toward the Ringstreet that encircled London, bombed-out sections appeared, isolated by wide sidewalks and traffic barriers. No one lived here; the bombed buildings were set aside by the Nazis, almost as museum-pieces, reminding Britons that they could only avoid devastation by cooperating and submitting. To hammer the point home, Goebbels’s office papered the outsides of the battered walls with posters bearing the slogan, “ _Zusammenarbeit macht Freiden_!” *

Thankfully, John got to the Ringstreet soon enough and turned onto the sleek -bahn, trees heavily planted on either side. (A green moat around Fortress London, he thought fancifully.) He drove west and saw an exit sign: HERTFORDSHIRE Watford-St. Albans-Hatfield.

“Hertfordshire sounds good,” he said to himself and headed north. He felt tingly, like someone diving into a pool, a sense of discovering something new yet old, something just for himself on his unusual holiday. “It really _has_ been too long since I had a vacation,” he thought.

It was a pleasant drive. So much of his life was spent in the grey urban intensity of New York that he forgot about countryside. Oh, of course there was Central Park (Reichzentrum Park as it was called nowadays). And when he and Helen had been a family on Staten Island, there was their large yard where the kids played and Helen gardened; in nice weather, they had cookouts. Still, those were all tamed, manicured spaces. But here, the sunny downs, the half-wild hedgerows, and especially, the profusion of flowers – all of these spoke to him of a deep and mysterious happiness.

His reverie was interrupted by his rumbling stomach - he’d forgotten to eat breakfast (Truth to tell, he preferred just eggs and coffee in the mornings, none of this “Full English Breakfast” stuff.) He stopped at a café in Hatfield for some sort of takeaway. He was tempted by the fish and chips, but didn’t think it would travel well to wherever-it-was he was going. Scotch eggs and porkpie seemed too stodgy, so he settled on ploughman’s lunch.

He drove on again, heading north, not really sure of a destination. A couple miles on he thought he saw a largish building with rather grand grounds. He looked to his left; but he couldn’t see anything through the thick trees. He drove for a minute or so more, the odd feeling remaining with him. John was not at all the type of man to believe in what he couldn’t see – but he was survivalist enough to trust his gut.

The road was divided by a median in the center. It looked to John as if they were about to put up a barrier, but for now it was just dirt and gravel. He looked about. Hardly anyone was traveling; no one was watching him. On a hunch, he crossed the median and headed back south, looking for an exit of some kind. To where, he didn’t know...

He found an exit that looked like it would take him west of the highway and (scout’s honor) then he felt himself heading a bit northwesterly...

That tingly, unsettled feeling touched him again. He saw a bit of a wide spot in the road and pulled over, opening his box of ploughman’s lunch. (Starting with the pickle, since he liked Branston pickle.) He drank the brown bottle of Fanta he’d picked up at Hatfield. And as he finished his lunch, he dimly discerned the shape of a building, well-hidden by trees.

He edged the car forward, crossing a brook. He was definitely on the grand drive leading up to the house. Or what would have been a grand drive... it was overgrown, almost tunnel-like, and the drive itself was rough with disrepair. The closer he got to the building, the worse the potholes became.

He stopped, pulling the car behind a tree. “But why hide?” he thought. “No one’s here, and no one knows I’m here. This isn’t anywhere forbidden... I could just drive up to the door, if there’s enough road to support the car.” But some inner sense told him to leave the modernity of the car behind – to approach the whatever-this-building-was on its own terms.

The wood opened up for him. He was taken aback, almost to the point of being thrown to the ground. It was – it had been – truly a magnificent house. The towering brick walls, at least three stories high, and like a gem in its setting, a pedimented central section, making a fourth story flanked by large chimneys – all this witnessed both elegant symmetry as well as the taste and comfort of the residents. Or rather... it was the _ruins_ of those brick walls, the devastated features that still showed the glory of the days of Whig and Tory. Unlike Speer’s and Hitler’s ransacking of classical motifs, this Georgian house bore a neoclassical perfection that sought to welcome and charm, rather than tower and intimidate.

But it was damaged now; the roof gone, the red brick stained with smoke and death. The chimneys looked like a pile of potsherds, and from certain angles he could see part of the back of the house was missing. The windows were blown out, like lesions on a pox victim’s face. Smith continued walking toward the ruined mansion, and as he did so, found that tears were running down his face...

And then he was at the front door – what was left of it – the perfect pediment of the entrance mirroring the roofline. Smith ground his teeth – the Nazis were beasts, to have bombed this beautiful home! He felt furious, injured, violated! He gently touched the defaced columns of the doorway, as if his hands could take away the pain...

Bracing himself, John opened the door. Even ruined, open to the sky, and with a rear tower knocked down completely, he could see the immensity, the grandeur... and the surprising sense of hominess. A sense of life well-lived, many lives who blessed these interiors... some grace that somehow outlasted this final breach.

Summoning the power of detachment, Smith wandered about. Rooks, who surely had nested in the trees all around, now made their homes on the jagged peaks of the bombed masonry. Well, let the rooks have it – it was their home as well. As it had been from the beginning. He fancied that they were more civilized than their human counterparts.

Piles of books, moss-covered and unreadable had fallen, and he could see the exposed shelves of the library. Oh, what fine things the noble residents must have read! If he had dared disturb the piles, he might well have discovered books he himself had known and loved...

As he wandered to the back, he noticed other things; not from the house’s glory days, surely. There were hospital-type beds, some overturned, some still appearing to wait for patients. The wreck of medical paraphernalia lay about, and every once in a while a poster was tacked to the walls – support for the Red Cross; or sometimes a cheery red poster admonishing one to “Keep Calm And Carry On.” He remembered that poster from his service days... and he guessed this was a great house that had been commandeered for the War, and evidently used as a hospital.

The sun shone kindly on him as he passed through the house, as if apologizing for intruding. Perhaps it was better to get away from the devastated interior. A grand place like this surely had a lovely park at one time; a garden, even a ruined one, would be less gloomy. After all, a garden gone to seed was picturesque, its ruins being merely Nature’s re-assertation of her own prerogative.

Indeed, it was better to be outdoors; the verdure everywhere put some heart back into him. He wandered for a good while, looking at a very green spot, and realized that what he thought was a very dense clump of trees was... green buildings?

As he approached, he laughed. They were... well, they were _greenhouses_. And green they truly were; moss and vines had covered them. Yet there they stood, almost entirely intact.

Curiosity drove him to peek inside. (The door stuck a bit, but with a good nudge it yielded to him almost as easily as if he’d said “Open, Sesame!”) It was a wondrous world... beyond emerald, wild, yet well-designed. “Romanticism, you’re winning,” he said.

He was drawn to a particular corner: a table with plants and gardening tools upon it, and a small closed cabinet. Some fragile rolls of paper lay about; though faded and somewhat damaged by mold, they revealed to him drawings of tree grafts, rubber plants - and a Venus’-flytrap in the stages of closing on a fly! He traced the lines, and an electric sensation ran through him. He had been here before. Déjà vu...

But that was impossible. Smith tried to brush it off, turning up a corner of his mouth. It made no sense to believe in déjà vu, other than to prove that mind could play tricks on itself... 

Except that he did believe it.He ran his fingers to the door of the cabinet, opening it. More rolls of paper, ledgers, a large box...

Why were his hands shaking? He took out the box... sturdy, metal; a bit rusted, but still sound. Something was written on it. Through the rust and grime he made out “...lli ...amb, 2n... FRS...”

But it was locked. John rummaged in the cabinet for a key, then felt the ground, moving the cabinet to feel behind it. No trace of a key.

He could take it back to London, find a locksmith; that would be the sensible thing. But no, he wanted to open it now, open it _here. Here_ is where it would reveal itself to him...

This was silly, he thought. But he reached for his Glock. The lock was toward the top; surely if he was careful.... He put the gun to the lock and fired.

The lid popped open, just as if it had been waiting for him. John took the box and found a bench to sit on. He pushed the lid back, and there, unharmed by the bullet, was a leatherbound journal.

He lifted it out. It was full of botanical observations and beautiful drawings. There was the flytrap (of course), and various flowers, all of them somewhat exotic. But his favorites were the orchids. As he browsed, he saw the pictures were something like what he used to draw - when he was young and had time for such things.

He traced the writing with his fingertips. The fancy copperplate of the neat titles and descriptions on the right side was both familiar and unfamiliar, like the writing one did when trying to disguise or forge handwriting for some reason. The copious notes and text on the left side – informative, sometimes gleeful with discovery, sometimes frustrated by a failed experiment – these notes were in penmanship that was exactly his own!

A sharp rustle, like dry leaves distracted him. “Who’s there?” he said. John looked and his eyebrows shot up. He saw a petite, dark-haired woman, in an old-fashioned bonnet and blue silk hoopskirts. “Ma’am?” The head turned in profile, and he saw the funny upturned nose and sweet profile of Vickie Kent, his own long-lost love.

He stood up and rubbed his eyes, then set the book down to meet this odd apparition. But when he looked back up, he was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * “Cooperation brings Peace!” Zusammenarbeit can also mean “collaboration” – apt for the reign of Edward and Wallis


	3. Thoughts In A Hotel Room

John drove back to the city quickly. Only back in his hotel room, surrounded by urban noise and bustle, fortified by a large pot of hot black coffee... only then did he feel ready to think about his day.

It wasn't the sense of loss of the ravaged mansion that threw him. Or even the sense of homecoming. So many grand places, public and private, had been blitzed. He could, if he wanted to, pretend that he recognized this or any other private house from bombing reports or damage surveillance photos.

No, the rum thing about it was seeing the apparition of the woman.

Smith knew about alternative universes, at least in theory. _Die Nebenwelt_ , Mengele and Himmler called it. Abendsen had dropped hints about it; so had Juliana.

But were any of them telling the truth about it? Or lying and misleading him? John trusted none of them. He only seemed on board with the Nazis because their intelligence on the ground of this world was better.

John pulled the box out again. The flower pictures seemed to him like old friends. But the writing... He needed to find a way of verifying or testing the book.

Of learning about a past life, he had no fear. If he could stand the possibility of concurrent present lives, then what fear could there be in accepting his past lives? Reincarnation, after all, was not an unheard-of concept as far as world philosophy went...

But that woman...Vickie (Victoria?) - how had that happened?! What _purpose_ was behind it? Or was it an accident... a rupture in barriers? Many times John had wondered to himself if Mengele's tinkering might alter reality itself.

Or maybe High Command didn't have that control. Nor did Abendsen and Juliana. Perhaps a broken universe had its own ways of righting itself.

"After all," Smith said, making a nod to the doctor and the filmmaker, " 'There are more things... than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' "


	4. The Book Revealed

Smith decided the logical place to start verifying the notebook was the Reading Room of the Anglo-Saxon Museum (formerly the British Museum.)

Seeing it, the Chief Librarian was startled! If his eyebrows had gone any higher they’d have touched the great dome. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

“I... I bought it cheap. I can’t remember if it was in a bookstore or an antique shop.”

“Hmmm... _where_? What part of town?”

“Oh, out of town, somewhere.” The librarian gave him a sharp look. “I can’t recall... I stopped in quite a few places.”

“Do you remember roughly what direction?”

“Well, a new town, a different country...” Smith made his face innocent, hoping to play the clueless American tourist. It helped that he was in civvies.

“Ummm, yes. I suppose.” The man seemed a bit exasperated. “These antique things; not understood in proper context,” (he waved his hand to indicate the Museum itself) “are really a bit recondite, not something for the layman to interest himself in. Still, seems harmless... after all, it’s botany...”

Smith put on a goofy smile.

“Well, if you really want to learn anything about this book, let me give you a name.” The librarian scrawled a name and address in Clerkenwell. “Antiquarian and book restorer. Fellow named Mustbridge. Bit of an odd duck. Half-deaf and half-crazy; claims it’s a result from having his place bombed during the Blitz... the Liberation War, I mean. But immensely knowledgeable in things that don’t matter...”

Another patron was approaching the desk and John was dismissed, so he hurried on to the Clerkenwell address.

“Yes, of course,” said Mustbridge. “I can restore it and look into the matter. 400 marks, and I’ll have it for you in two, two-and-a-half weeks.”

John was crestfallen. He needed to know as soon as possible; it practically felt like his life depended on it. Of course he couldn’t say all that, but... “Can’t I get it any sooner?” he asked. He mentally rehearsed a story about wanting it for a dear-but-decrepit aunt...

Mustbridge peered at him - again, that sharp, perspicacious British glance. But his face smoothed over, kindly and humorously. “Ahhh, well! For a... a... _consideration_ all things are possible! Let us say...” (he thumbed through the dirtier pages) “... let’s say, understanding the job must be done _well_ , that it could be ready 4 days from now. If you’ll agree to 1,200 marks for the burden on my time...”

“Agreed.” John left the workshop, wondering how he would amuse himself in that time whilst on constant tenterhooks.

At last the day came. John’s heart thumped wildly as he entered the shop.

“Fascinating book, fascinating!” said Mustbridge. “You can see its extensive observation about orchids and exotics, making it an amazing work of botany in its own right. But it’s even more compelling because of who wrote it – namely, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. He was a member of the Royal Society, you know.”

The antiquarian pointed out a corner of the book where Lord M wrote his name, and also pointed out similarities between the writing in the folio and known samples of Lord M’s handwriting.

“Ye-es... very interesting,” John said. (Naturally keeping completely mum about the fact that it’s also his own.) “But what about the possibility of forgery?”

“Highly unlikely,” said Mustbridge. “Oh, forgery works for a signature, maybe a short letter or document, but it’s hard to maintain over a longer manuscript. Make no mistake – a man’s handwriting is as distinctive as he is! And then there is this...”

He turned to a particular drawing of an orchid... and then produced another old book and turned to something there. Same drawing, in exactly the same style.

“Again, someone will argue that art can be copied. But this particular orchid is extraordinarily rare. This book which also documents it,” – he pointed out the other volume – “was a very limited edition by the Royal Society, something like only 50-75 copies. It is thought Lord Melbourne had it printed for a very select audience. At the time, this orchid grew in only two places: the wild jungles of Malaysia; and the greenhouses at Brocket Hall.”

The restorer also went on to note that the paper was of the right era; the ink appeared correct, as did the aging of the book. A forgery, even a clever one, would not have aged correctly, especially after molding somewhat and being kept in poor conditions. There was no reason to question. The folio was undoubtedly the compilation of Lord M’s notes and experimentation.

John thanked him, gladly paying the fee.

“It was a pleasure to work on it,” said Mustbridge. “ _Au revoir_ , then?”

“Yes... _au revoir._ ” He left the shop and held the book close to his chest all the way back to the hotel.

That evening he lovingly paged through the folio, front to back and back to front again. He traced Lord M’s handwriting – _his_ handwriting – and wondered at the orchids. Such an odd shape, those flowers were.

He remembered an incident, back when he and Edmund were small. They were drawing pictures, back in their home in New York. Edmund was drawing horses and dogs and fire engines; John was drawing trees and houses and flowers. They had gotten into an argument because Edmund said he drew stupid-looking flowers. John defended them as “unique.” Their shouting brought Mother to the playroom. She picked up John’s picture. “Oh, they look like orchids!” she said. She ruffled his hair and told the boys they mustn’t argue and yell.

Shortly after that, she took them to the botanical gardens. And there, just as John had drawn them, were orchids.

“But how did he draw them, if he never saw them?” asked Edmund.

“Well, society ladies wear them, at soirees and such. Perhaps you snuck into one of our parties when you were supposed to be in bed, Johnny?”

“No, I didn’t, I swear!” He paused. “The flowers were in my head!”

Mother smiled teasingly. “Why then, if you say it is so, it must be so!”

But now he knew why he was able to draw orchids. Now he understood why he had seen a vision of Vickie in hoopskirts and queenly bonnet. She truly had been (still was?) Victoria, just as she’d hinted to him, so many years ago. Just as in some mysterious way, he had been (and still was?) Lord M. He accepted it all now.

It did him little good to know all this, save for a spooky parlor game. Nevertheless, there it lay. An open book on his lap... and an open door to the past.


End file.
